And Then They Shot A Beam
by ScottishPanties
Summary: Everyone has their secret shames. It's just that sometimes these guys forget to keep it very secret. Or be ashamed.


"Hey, Chopper!"

With a yelp, Chopper jumped up and put himself between the door and the television, desperately trying to cover up the screen with his back and looking up at his captain with wide, terrified eyes. Luffy didn't seem to notice.

"Come outside! I'm gonna get Usopp to see if Sanji's spatula makes a good slingshot!"

"Umm… er… m-maybe later…"

Luffy's head quirked to one side as he saw the bright colors on the screen behind his doctor. "Hey, what're you watching?"

"NOTHING! Nothing!" The reindeer waved his arms wildly in denial. "I'm not watching anything! G-go outside, I'll be out later—!"

Completely ignoring the protests, Luffy stepped further in, trying to get a better look past Chopper's body. "What're those things? Are they other deers? They look funny."

"THEY DO NOT!" Suddenly, the little animal had gone from an expression of horror to one of anger. "They look just fine! And, and they're not deer, they're ponies, okay?" There was just enough time for Chopper to realize what he'd said, and begin to look ashamed, before Luffy sat down in front of the television.

"Looks neat. Does that one have wings? Get out of the way, I wanna see! What're they doing?"

The little doctor stared at the boy a moment, before moving away from the screen and sitting down beside him, glancing between Luffy and the show. "Umm… y-yeah, that one's a Pegasus, her name is Fluttershy, and there's unicorns too, and… um, this evil pony made the sun go away, so—"

"WHOA!" Luffy leaned forward, rapt, as suddenly a cliffside gave out from under the feet of the ponies on screen, all the wingless ponies plummeting down a dangerous slope. "Oh wow! This is so cool!"

Chopper, as well, was staring at the screen, hooves covering his mouth in terror, as two ponies struggled to hold on to each other at cliff's edge.

* * *

><p>"Guys? What're you—" Usopp's question was cut off by the sound of a delightfully sweet little song, and the television screen showed scenes of a bright pink hot air balloon descending over a town of Technicolor equines. "…Uh."<p>

Luffy's head whipped around, with a smile that looked liable to break his face. "USOPP! You have to watch this! It's awesome! They shot a FRIENDSHIP LASER! A rainbow friendship laser! It was great!"

The sniper continued to stare at the screen, entirely nonplussed. "Are you… seriously watching this?" His mouth screwed up in distaste. "Looks pretty girly."

"It's not!" Chopper insisted. "It's, it's really cool! It's got adventures! And fun songs, and…"

"And lasers!" Luffy added emphatically when Chopper trailed off. "We should shoot a friendship laser, too!"

"I don't think that's—"

"SHH! It's back on!" The other two focused on the screen again as the theme song came to a close, completely ignoring Usopp again. Confusion began to give way to annoyance at his crewmates, and Usopp crossed his arms.

"You guys have got to be kidding! This looks really dumb! What's even going on, it's a bunch of girly, brightly-colored animals with big eyes talking about… dumb morals, or something, I can tell a story way better than… is that one a unicorn?"

Chopper gave a vacant nod. "And the other one is a cowgirl."

"That… that's dumb! Why do horses need cows?"

"Ponies!" Luffy corrected without looking away, and added a "Shhhhh!" in afterthought.

Usopp huffed, puffing out his chest. "Well, you kids might get into that sort of thing, but the Great Usopp is far too caught up in his own things he needs to do, far more important than… than… hold on, was that one a guy?"

"Big Macintosh," Chopper mumbled.

"Oh, and they… work on a farm? I don't get how…" Usopp trailed off, stepping further into the room. "Livestock in charge of more livestock, this is just silly…" The other two ignored him fully, and Usopp sat down, brow furrowed in bafflement.

* * *

><p>Brook gave a terrified gasp as an exhausted pony stood high on a diving board. "Oh! Oh dear, that looks awfully unsafe, and Applejack has been working herself so hard—she won't jump, will she? She may hurt herself—OOH! Oh dear! Oh dear, is she all right?"<p>

Luffy leaned forward. "Oh man, I hope she gets it right this time, I wanna see the trick Rainbow Dash is trying for!"

"I dunno," Franky mused, tapping at his chin. "I don't think Dash did a very good job makin' that catapult, more likely to fall apart than give her a good liftoff."

Whimpering, Brook covered his eye sockets with his spindly fingers, and pulled his knees close as he peeked through his joints. "I, I don't think I can watch, I don't think this will end well at all!"

"They'll be fine, jeez," Usopp insisted, rolling his eyes, not fully realizing that he was biting his lip when he focused on the screen again.

* * *

><p>There was a chorus of furious gasps as a griffon roared in a pony's face.<p>

"Oh hell no she didn't," Franky snarled, cracking his knuckles. "Nobody picks on Fluttershy! That Gilda bitch better get what's coming to her!"

"She… she's a simply awful person!" Brook crowed, wringing his hands. "I certainly hope Rainbow Dash comes to realize what an unpleasant person she's spending her time with!"

Luffy bounced up and down in his seat. "Don't worry! Pinkie's gonna fix everything! She'll probably… maybe she'll shoot her with a laser!"

"I haven't seen a single one of these shitty lasers you keep talking about," Sanji drawled as he hovered over the plate of snacks he'd put down ten minutes ago and hadn't quite gotten around to leaving. "You sure that it really happened, and you didn't just make it up?"

"No!" Chopper insisted. "They did! They shot a beam made up of friendship magic, and it made Nightmare Moon nice again!"

Sanji huffed, but still eyed the screen, while Luffy poked out a lip, thinking it over. "Hey, Franky, do you think we can shoot a friendship laser? We're all friends."

The cyborg grinned. "You think? I dunno how the specs behind that would work, but if we could pull it off…"

* * *

><p>Nami sighed as she unfolded her paper and crossed her legs. She honestly hadn't the slightest as to why the boys were getting so worked up over this goofy show every week; from what she could tell, it wasn't awful, but it certainly wasn't worth all the fuss.<p>

"Are you enjoying the show, Miss Nami? Do you need us to turn up the volume for you?" The chef gave her a gooey smile as he put down a drink for her.

"I'm fine," she dismissed, eyes on the paper. She caught word from the television, something about defeating the Ursa Major. She shook her head and turned the page. Fighting off constellations, that really was kid stuff.

But the boys liked it enough, and it didn't cost them anything, she figured Sanji had earned her presence as an excuse to come in and serve her while they watched. She was even kind enough to pretend not to notice how he lingered, watching the screen from the corner of his eye as he fawned over her.

Over by the wall, but with a clear angle on the television, Zoro gave a rather pointed snore.

* * *

><p>A small lexicon of rare and extinct herbs was needed for part of Robin's research, and she recalled perhaps having lent it out to Chopper some time ago. Perhaps it was rude of her to go looking through his drawers to look for it, but when she came upon a thick stack of hand-written papers, she couldn't help but pause.<p>

It was written in Chopper's neat but large scrawl, large blots of ink apparently covering up mistakes. The archeologist quickly gave into her curiosity as to what their little doctor had put so much effort into writing, looking over the top page to read:

_There was a bad disease that had infected Ponyville, everypony was getting sick and scared because no one knew what was wrong! "What will we do?" said Fluttershy shyly. "I know!" Twilight Sparkle said excitedly. "We will go get a doctor who is better than the ones in town!" "Where can we get someone like that?" asked Pinkie Pie bouncily. "I read about someone who can help. His name is Tony Tony Chopper and he lives in the Everfree Forest with all the scary monsters!" said Twilight smartly. "He must be very brave," said Fluttershy. "He is, and he is strong too, I hear he was able to beat a manticore all by himself! He is a reindeer and he has big horns to fight off scary monsters with and he is not afraid of anyone, is what I read." Twilight Sparkle said. "Wow he sounds really really cool!" Rainbow Dash said. "We should bring him here right away!" "Okay I will go get him every__pony stay here and make sure __ ponies stay safe and try to be healthy and make sure everyone drinks plenty of water and gets lots of bedrest there are bandages in the library," said Twilight Sparkle as doctorlike as she could. So she went to the forest where_

"Wh-what are you doing?"

Robin looked up, to see the author himself standing in the door, eyes wide and teeth gritted. She gave him a smile. "Ah, there you are. Did you write this?"

"I—NO! I… I… d-don't look at that!" Chopper rushed forward to slam the drawer containing the pages shut, and leaned against it. "I… I didn't write it! You shouldn't go through other people's things, anyway, and… it's nothing, it's just some stupid thing that... it's not mine, so I don't care!"

She nodded, avoiding any admission to whether or not she believed him. "It's a story about that show you all watch together each week, isn't it? You seem to like it an awful lot." Chopper didn't say anything. Robin gave a chuckle. "It seemed quite interesting. I certainly hope whoever writes it finishes the story, I would hate for all the little ponies to stay sick."

The reindeer's muscles slowly began to loosen, and he looked down. Robin watched, quiet for several long moments. "You must be very glad to have so many in the crew to watch it with."

Chopper bit at his lip, before rubbing his arm with a hoof. "Well, everyone in the show's really nice, and they sometimes go on adventures, and it's a lot of cool stuff that happens and it's really not as girly as it looks…" The archeologist nodded along with his excuses, while Chopper refused to look up at her. "And it… it's normal for things with hooves and weird colors to talk and make friends, in that show."

Robin blinked, falling quiet again for a few seconds while Chopper scuffed a foot on the floor. Then, she put on another small smile. "How nice. I'll have to watch it some time."

* * *

><p>"Oh, I see, I see, there were two lessons in this week's episode!" Brook cooed. "One was not to judge people by how they looked, without getting to know them… and the other was not to disregard books with strange titles! How very educational!"<p>

"I wonder if there really are plants like that that can put those weird curse-jokes on people," Chopper murmured to himself, still watching the credits with fascination.

Usopp was wearing a peculiar grin. "There are, in fact! I came across a whole field of them, once, it gave me these huge buck teeth!" He put a few fingers in his mouth to emphasize. "I wath like a walruth, it wath tho weird!"

"Feh! You idiots don't get the complexity of a show like this! Only the most refined of ladies can appreciate such a commentary as this, right Miss Nami?"

Nami gave Sanji an uninterested grunt, tapping her pen against the outline of a map.

"You know," Robin mused, "That zebra's digging never went explained, but it's really a matter of how zebras will dig for water in desertland." She smiled and tilted her head to one side. "I suspect her whole family must have died of dehydration, and she was forced to move to a more lush landscape to escape the same fate."

Zoro gave a warning grunt from his weekly sleeping spot, eyes still quite firmly shut, and Robin simply chuckled.

Luffy had gotten up, stretching himself out. "Franky, you know what? I think I figured out the friendship laser! I think we need to power up the Thousand Sunny with more friendship!"

The cyborg scowled. "Hey, Sunny's chock full of love and friendship, don't you talk down to her about that!"

"But we need a friendbeam! We need to all work hard and train our friendship levels!"

Usopp frowned, fingers still in his mouth while Chopper giggled. "Howwa we gonna do tha'?"

The captain beamed, puffing out his chest. "I thought really hard about this, but I think I figured out a way!" He threw his arms wide. "We all need to start hugging more!" No one had a moment to protest before long arms wound their way around the room and pulled everyone into a tight, cramped hug. "MAGICAL FRIENDSHIP POWERS, GO!"


End file.
